Feb 20, 2013

Gun control has been a very hot topic in the united States especially after the tragic Newtown shooting in December of last year. Gun-grabbers have seized the opportunity to stand on the graves of these poor dead children to push their agenda. Well some in the tech industry are pushing back (Me included, check out my new blog Mainwashed).

Gene Hoffman, CEO of Vindicia, a digital subscription payments processing firm, and chairmen of the Calguns Foundation says that gun control is more than just citizen control. It is technology control. Hoffman likens this new push for gun control to the attempt of the Federal Government to control PGP encryption in the 1990's.

"It's weird for me to hear about technologists in the wake of Sandy Hook saying that we should ban guns -- gun control is simply technology control," Hoffman says. "The only difference between this [AR-15] and my grandfather's one is that you can fire more rounds. Anything that can be used defensively can be used offensively."

...Prior to Vindicia, Hoffman was CEO of eMusic, an early precursor of iTunes. He jokes that lawmakers saw him and his colleagues at eMusic as professional music pirates when they first started out. But what they were trying to do was to provide a legitimate alternative to what was illegally available over the file-sharing networks. Similarly, he spent the early part of his career watching federal law enforcement authorities try to prevent the export of encryption software to no avail.

What's your take on the gun control debate? Do you subscribe to Hoffman's point of view? Whay or why not? Let us know in the comments.